Strong evidence that antihypertensive pharmacologica treatment reduces cardiovascular morbidity and mortality

Journal of Clinical and Basic Cardiology 1999; 2 (1): 128-129

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Keywords: antihypertensive Therapie,  Interventionsstudien,  kardiovaskuläre Morbidität,  kardiovaskuläre Mortalität,  antihypertensive treatment,  cardiovascular morbidity,  cardiovascular mortality,  intervention trials

The clinical usefulness of lowering elevated blood pressure with pharmacologic treatment is one of the best documented areas of medical therapy: the incidence of stroke, and to a lesser degree coronary heart disease morbidity and mortality, are reduced [1, 2]. In addition to the ?classical? 13 intervention trials [1] (16 if the Hypertension in the Elderly Trials are included [3]), frequently and erroneously added up to 14 or 17 respectively, five new large intervention trials in hypertension have been presented recently. These are the Shanghai Trial Of Nifedipine in Elderly Hypertensives (STONE) [4], the Systolic Hypertension in the Elderly trial (Syst-Eur) [5], the Hypertension Optimal Treatment (HOT) study [6], the Captopril Prevention Project (CAPPP) [7] and the Systolic Hypertension in China (Syst-China) study [8]. In addition, a great number of prospective intervention trials with newer antihypertensive agents such as calcium antagonists and angiotensin II receptor antagonists are currently in progress and some of them will be briefly reviewed here. J Clin Basic Cardiol 1999; 2: 128-9.